‘The contraption’ and the future of social democracy: the government experiment in Portugal

Something
relatively obvious took too long to be explicitly acknowledged in Portuguese
democracy: that there are more points of convergence than of divergence among
the leftwing parties. Português

Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomes the Prime Minister of Portugal, Antonio Costa, to Berlin, 2016. Bernd von Jutrczenka/Press Association. All rights reserved.We take a look here at the manifest failings of social democracy over recent decades, failings, that is, until the
emergence of a political alternative convening different forces around a
progressive agenda, as embodied by the configuration of the current Portuguese
government.

Let us begin by
considering the results of the latest legislative elections in the Netherlands.
While the defeat of the far right may have ultimately allowed for some general
relief, concerns over the long run continue to rise across the political
spectrum.

For one, it appears
that the non-victory of Geert Wilders can be attributed to the radicalisation
of the nationalistic, anti-immigration rightwing party, led by the current
prime minister. This means that part of the extremist agenda is beginning to
permeate the traditional parties and to be normalised in political discourse
and action. While such a strategy may momentarily stall the rise of the far
right, it will eventually institutionalise and legitimise the latter’s agenda.

Another worrisome
development is the downfall of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party, sunk to
near political irrelevance when it had only just become partner to the
government in the previous election. Similarities with the recent fate of the
Greek socialist party can be seen here. Ironically, both fell prey to the same
austerity politics they had previously devised: the former, as ideologue and
impostor on a European scale, the latter as enforcer in its own country,
against its own people. Subsequently, in France, the presidential elections also
signalled early on that the socialist party candidate would not be a
significant contender in the race.

Rather than rightwing
politics (resilient to these collisions despite having driven the austerity
agenda), it is social democracy which is succumbing to the shockwaves emanating
from austerity. This should come as no great surprise, since austerity is in
keeping with the political imagination of the right, but negates the very
foundational essence of social democracy.

Many alarms were sounded
at the time these choices were made on the nefarious consequences that this
dissonance between the political imagination and the political agenda would
bring about, including the electoral fragmentation of these political forces.
Nevertheless, leaders like Mr. Dijsselbloem (still heading the Eurogroup) chose
not only to ignore them, but bewilderingly to insist on a programme that had
long been punishing several European nations, accompanied by his unfortunate advice
to southern populations against wasting money on ‘women and alcohol’. What could
possibly justify such bullheaded and blatant prejudice?

Social democratic myths and myopias

This is not such a
straightforward question to answer. We bring four possible hypotheses to the
table.

A first premise
would be that social democracy, a fixture of many OECD countries, has been
failing for at least two decades. Its original goal was to contain the growth
of inequality through redistributive policies. Instead, the inequality gap has
been rising in the majority of those countries since the 1980s. To the
opponents of social democracy, it has failed because it made economies less
competitive. Social democracy becomes untenable as soon as the west begins to
lose its historical advantages in a global context of emerging economies. This
diagnosis has become mainstream and is linked to the shift in the model of
European construction after the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, as well as to the
austerity politics of recent times.

A second conjecture
refers to an overwhelming disconnect from social reality as the price to pay
for the view that this is how the most competitive economies are created.
Social democracy gradually dropped the social in favour of a merely economic
view of reality, and notably the univocal adherence to that interpretation was
achieved through the purging of alternative economic perspectives. The focus on
the primacy of the economic, with at its core the quasi-fundamentalist grip of
neoliberalism, shifted politics away from the reality of life (Lebenswelt), which in turn moved into an
ivory tower draped in technocracy, built not to serve the people and the common
good, but the interests of the most powerful countries.

The third
hypothesis suggests simply that the sociological grounding of social democracy
has been eroding since the 80s/90s, along with a decisively shrinking working
class. In countries like the Netherlands, a cynical and ambiguous relation with
Europe was stirred up in its place, in an attempt to counter receding electoral
support. European institutions emerged as a new arena for the defence of the
interests of the Dutch people: the protection of various national social groups
leapt from factories and communities out to the European sphere. And it was in
this context that austerity became an appealing policy, aimed primarily at the
southern peoples, now pictured as having taken advantage of the northern
countries and of living above their means.

The policy was thus
designed to correct such misbehaviour and to protect the internal interests of
the Dutch, aligning with those of Germans and others, as opposed to the non-conforming
countries. However, as the election
results showed, that narrative – spun by social democrat parties and one of its
campaign talking points – failed to convince. In part, as we have noted, this
was because it could hardly align itself with the original ideology, and voters
ultimately perceived this as political treason. In addition to dropping the
social dimension, the stance of some of these social democratic parties seriously
compromised what democracy was left in EU institutions. This double defacement
contributed, in turn, to the emergence of new political and partisan
alternatives, in particular in the Dutch context, the Greens. The Greens proceeded
to radicalise and integrate parts of the social democratic ideology into their
programme, blending it with ecological, environmental, and social
sustainability agendas.

The fourth hypothesis
posits sheer cultural prejudice and intolerance against the southern peoples,
which some of the so-called social democratic parties not only do not deny
upfront, but connive with. The institutionalisation of this cultural prejudice set
the tone, from 2010 onwards, of the political discourse of certain leaders and
mainstream circles in European Union institutions, and only further instigated populism
and nationalisms.

These four
hypotheses on the decline of social democracy – having failed its purpose of
cohesion; forgotten its social model; jeopardised European democracy; and
fostered prejudice amongst various countries – identify interrelated structural
trends which must be reversed and overcome. Many other arguments may follow in
a debate which should increasingly occupy the public sphere, and which will
hopefully bear fruit in the foreseeable future. The worst that could happen
would be to bury our heads in the sand, waiting for the storm to be over. It is
delusional to believe the storm will simply subside, that time heals all, and
helps to forget all. It will not be so. It is truly fundamental for Europe that
social democracy reinvent itself and reclaim its former initiative.

‘The contraption’ – dynamic coalition

The points of
divergence are important, as they reveal that different alternatives are found
in different spheres (which is a good thing).

In this context,
the current government experiment in Portugal (the socialist party spearheads
an alliance with two far-left parties, the Communist Party and the Left Bloc)
suggests a path which might be followed in other European countries. The
experiment, which has come to be known as “a geringonça” (“the contraption”)
illustrates that social democracy is not necessarily doomed. On the contrary,
it can expand and construct bridges, mobilising political connections among
different forces around a progressive agenda.

The agreements at
the origin of the current majority became the substance of an effective
coalition process which is in essence being carried out. What has happened so
far has thrown into relief something which, while relatively obvious, took a
long time (too long) to be explicitly acknowledged in Portuguese democracy: that
there are more points of convergence than of divergence among the leftwing
parties. It further revealed something even more crucial: that the points of
divergence are important, as they reveal that different alternatives are found
in different spheres (which is a good thing); but they do not have to
necessarily override the points of convergence. This methodological distinction
at the core of the coalition was a further novelty of the negotiation process.
Lo and behold, the left can act pragmatically without compromising the
fundamental ideological principles of each party. Lo
and behold, the left can act pragmatically without compromising the fundamental
ideological principles of each party.

This government
configuration has already run several risks successfully. The programme of
income restitution and valorisation of people, enterprises and public
institutions represents a structural departure from the previous model and that
takes time to bear fruit. A year and a half after the government came to power,
the country is patently much better. Disposable income has been progressively
restored, unemployment is dropping continuously (currently 9.9%, and below 10%
for the first time in 8 years), the public deficit has decreased to levels not
fathomable only a few months ago (2%), growth tends to stay above 2%, exports
remain strong.

Only the external
debt remains at unsustainable levels which may (and will) eventually call for
restructuring. Contrary to what many predicted after the rise of the left to
power, not only did the country not collapse, but it is actually approaching
ever closer to a sustainable economic and financial situation, and steadily
moving away from the possibility of a second bail out. Following a profound
crisis, and though much remains to be tackled in terms of social cohesion and
inequality, Portugal currently lives in political and social stability, which
is singularly remarkable in the European context. Portugal
currently lives in political and social stability, which is singularly
remarkable in the European context.

Reversing European drift

However, the
continuity of this state of affairs cannot be ensured in an isolated manner. It
is urgent to reassemble social democracy on its different levels, and this is
done precisely by addressing the four hypotheses we have put forward.

Firstly, the
coexistence of capitalism and social democracy cannot happen at the cost of the
latter. Recalcitrant and growing intergenerational economic inequalities must
be countered with policies that infuse equality into the very reproduction
cycle of capital and which bring the regulation of inequalities in a broader intergenerational
sense. An empirically well-informed theoretical reformulation is therefore in
order, which can strengthen the social democratic agenda instead of
demobilising it.

Secondly, in the European Framework,
a model of economic and juridical integration must be restored, based on social
inclusion and democratic legitimacy. A project of integration resting on indifference
towards the exclusion it produces can only be carried out by more or less
explicit coercive means, of which austerity politics are an example. This drift
of the European Union must be reversed.

Thirdly, the same principle of
socially inclusive integration must hold not only for European citizens, but
also for the Union member states, which would preclude the current scenario of
fiscal competition among the member states, as well as other forms of
competition taking advantage within the common space of the Union of the
disadvantages of its counterparts.

Against bullies

Finally,
to counter the prejudice that poorly disguises the naturalisation of
discrimination based on assumptions such as cultural superiority, it is as well
to heed Gilles Deleuze and to become “worthy
of the event”. By calling for the resignation of Dijsselbloem in a manner which
was loud and clear to the wider European Union, the Portuguese prime minister
António Costa made adequate reply to the stereotype, explicit or camouflaged,
of rogue behaviour, inferiority, and self-indulgence tarring southern European
countries, their peoples and cultures. While not alone, he was one of the first
to protest and the most vehement, even eliciting some unhelpful response from
his Dutch counterpart. This is the
only sound way to democratically defeat populism.
To
be able to represent a people, adult citizens, with adult concerns and
anxieties, autonomous citizens who wish to be represented by other adult citizens who take them seriously.

Dijsselbloem
has attempted to downplay it as is his style, but this is far from the truth;
in fact, he is simply a mimic, and it is the original that he mimics that must be
ousted. There must be an end to this sort of European badmouthing, which has
all the advantage of spreading like gossip, and none of the disadvantage of
having to be done behind the target’s back; in other words, stereotyping, which was for many years
the pattern of communication among the same politicians who used austerity as a
non-inclusive European integration policy.

Dismissing
the condescension of Dijsselbloem and his ilk (also found in Portugal) is also
a lesson in how to defeat populism. To overcome the latter the most important
tactic is to defuse it, to frustrate its decoys, to render it speechless, like
the sulking, mumbling figure Dijsselbloem became. This achieves more against
populism than a hundred observant declarations on its dangers.

This
kind of patronising, which belittles and affronts the people, cannot be left
unanswered. But what is in order here is not any populist, incendiary response,
furthering exclusion, and making equal imbeciles of us all. It is instead a
response from representatives who can articulate, at the right moment, with the
right words, the sentiment of the fellow citizens they stand for. This is the
only sound way to democratically defeat populism.

To
be able to represent a people, adult citizens, with adult concerns and
anxieties, autonomous citizens who wish to be represented by other adult citizens who take them seriously. And who can indeed rise to the occasion.

About the authors

Renato Miguel do Carmo is a sociologist at the
Instituto Universitário de Lisboa.

André Barata is a political philosopher in the Universidade da
Beira Interior.

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